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Wednesday, May 6, 2009

No More Free Wacos: An Explication of the Obvious Addressed to Eric Holder, Attorney General of the United States.

Explication - noun; the act of making clear or removing obscurity from the meaning of a word, symbol or expression. -- Webster's Dictionary.

5 May 2009

Dear Eric,

I believe I'm entitled to use your first name, since you have expressed an interest in circumscribing my liberty and seizing my personal property, to wit, three heretofore legal semi-automatic rifles of military utility (mistakenly dubbed "assault rifles"). Anyone who wants to do something so personal and intimate as to commit premeditated theft upon you need not be given any honorifics, don't you agree? I mean, if a street thug announces that he wishes to rob you, there is no need to address him as "Sir" this or "Mister" that. Why should rapacious government thieves who announce their intentions so boldly be treated any differently? If you are offended by the fact that you are unused to being addressed in this manner, I can only say that you are not as offended as I am at the prospect of your administration trying to steal my property and liberty.

But, that is not why I write you today. No, I received what I believe to be a credible report this afternoon about someone whom the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives views as a real thorn in their side. The substance of the report has it that you, or someone in your office, has, in reference to this friend of mine, muttered something very much like the following:

"What miserable drones and traitors have I nurtured and promoted in my household who let their lord be treated with such shameful contempt by a low-born cleric! . . . Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?"

That, of course, was Henry the Second speaking of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket, in the year of our Lord 1170.

Shortly thereafter, four of Henry's knights, Reginald Fitzurse, Hugh de Moreville, William de Tracy, and Richard le Breton entered Canterbury Cathedral, and hacked Becket to death with swords, scattering his brains on the floor. "Let us go," said one, "this fellow will not be getting up again."

That political murder had great consequences for Henry, and he regretted it the rest of his long reign.

But enough of Henry. Let's talk about the alleged threat. I am sure that this is a base canard, something attributed to you by someone who just wishes to make trouble. However, as it happens, this is not the first time, or even the second, that I have heard such threats attributed to your department since the election.

Yet, surely, such an educated man as yourself would not make King Henry's mistake. However, it seems likely that it did come out of your department, so let us say that in some perverted attempt to convey a threat to "this troublesome priest" one of your subordinates actually uttered it. Let us say, for purposes of hypothetical argument, that it is in some sense, true.

I know how agencies can spin out of control if not properly guided by upper management. So do you. I'm sure that you saw the television images out of Texas on 28 February and 19 April 1993. I think you would agree with me that neither of those days likely represented the official policy of the Clinton administration. Yet, they happened.

Subsequent to that, citizens formed self-defense militias, millions more of your hated "assault weapons" were imported and sold before the ban and we spent the next seven years staring uneasily at one another, waiting for the next government-issue bloody shoe to drop. Oh, yes, and your party lost control of the Congress, with even President Clinton blaming it on the passage of the Brady Bill and the Assault Weapons Ban. The Law of Unintended Consequences sure sucks, doesn't it?

But, the other shoe didn't drop.

Yet, there's something you should understand about that whole process. As an amateur historian and keen observer of current affairs I can see it without difficulty.

You only get one free Waco.

If the statistics on the sales of firearms and ammunition tell you anything, you ought to understand that the same dynamic is at work now and yet from your point of view you haven't DONE anything to deserve it. Oh, you've muttered occasional threats to reinstate the Assault Weapons Ban, but no one believes politicians when they speak anyway.

So why, you may ask yourself, is this happening?

Like I said, Eric, you only get one free Waco. It was your original sin. The botched raid, the massacre, the cover-ups, we've been through them already. You may remember that no one was held to account for that -- not very reassuring to the citizenry. And if, as is apparent, someone in the Department of Justice hasn't learned the lessons of the first Waco, we, the millions of "bitter clingers" out here in fly-over country, have. We have no reason to be trusting of your motives. For we, and you, have been here before.

So, let me explicate the obvious: There are no do-overs, not when it comes to your employees killing American citizens for bad reasons. Look around, count the guns, estimate the billions of rounds of small arms ammunition in private hands, and consider that the latest Janet has already declared most of the rest of us, including veterans, "domestic terrorists" anyway. Do you think we have not noticed? Do you think we do not remember the misdeeds of the last administration you were a part of?

In addition, recent government misconduct -- bureaucratic, legal and judicial -- in the Wayne Fincher and David Olofson cases (the same kind of chicanery that rightly caused you to overturn the conviction of Alaska Senator Ted Stevens) has convinced many of us that there is no percentage in betting on a fair trial if the ATF sets their sights on us and we are not part of the Mandarin class.

If we are no longer under the rule of constitutional law but are merely subject to irreversible bureaucratic diktat and we do not fancy being railroaded in a patently unfair federal trial where expert witnesses are denied access to evidence, then our options when approached by ATF agents are rather limited. It is plain, in the absence of the right of a fair trial, that a target of ATF investigation has little to lose by resorting to the right of an unfair gunfight. This may be an unintended consequence of those cases. It is nonetheless real.

Wake up and smell what your administration is shoveling from downwind, where we are forced to stand. And please understand the predicament you've put yourselves in by your present and former bad behavior.

There will be no more free Wacos.

Please, for all our sakes, counsel your employees, who apparently seek to curry your favor by misquoting you, that replicating 1993 is neither good policy nor is it your intention. We don't need any more itchy trigger fingers in this country.

And Eric, not to put too fine a point on it, but you and I both can make an educated guess about what mischief will likely ensue if ANY high-profile Second Amendment activist "has an accident". Best to tell your lads and lasses to stick to those nice safe paper cases (you know, the ones with the 4473s completed with a "Y", rather than "yes") and confine their wet-work fantasies to their off-duty reading. There's still lots of vicious drug gangs, murderous career criminals and real terrorists out there to keep them busy without picking a fight with honest American gunowners who merely want to be left alone.

Thank you for your kind attention in this matter. I wish you a nice, full and safe term of office. Really.

(A distribution note to Three Percenters: Cast this one far and wide, folks. I have been told we need to make sure that the adults in the permanent bureaucracy exercise some control over their temporary charges, no matter how short-sighted, immature and petulant the Obamakiddies seem to be. The children are on the playground with loaded firearms, playing with societal forces they scarcely understand. Of course, this is putting the very nicest face possible on such potentially deadly behavior. Do I think it will work? Unlikely, but we have to try anyway.)

I understand and agree that we must not and will not make any stupid mistakes. What I don't understand is how so many people in this country could care less that our elected officials are trying to push Card check down our throats or that obama has spent so much money hiding his original birth certificate. I can see how they were easily led around by the nose or voted for obama simply because they didn't bother to think for themselves but are they really willing to sit by and watch the next waco without giving it a second thought?My guess is the half of this country who voted for obama will sit by and allow the next Wayne Fincher, David Olofson, or worse without so much as an email to their congresscritter. What worries me is that the rest of us will also sit by as it happens. Not in the same way as the obots with our heads burried in the sand but but the results will be almost the same, eric and those like him will continue to get away with breaking the law. I'm basically just mad as hell and wanting to vent but how many of us have to be sent to prison for a bogus charge before it's ok to fight back? Do we wait for the next Waco or Ruby Ridge? We all have stories of local gun shops who's business was destroyed by thugs or no knock warrants gone bad. I'm really afraid we will all sit by and wait one day too many.

Friend of mine in the media wrote a similar letter -- only with a desperate tone -- to the head honchos of his division urging them to get in touch with the public mood to save their corporation from bankruptcy if for no other reason. He was asked to define "semi-automatic, "flyover country" and other terms WE use all the time. Sigh. As David Codrea points out, the media are studiously ignoring the recent defecation on the rules of evidence and ability to use expert defense witnesses in the Olofson case.

A militia leader was asked by a government agent "Will you go to the next Waco?" The answer: "Why? There's plenty of you federal sonsabitches right here." Urban legend? Not from what I've seen. I also see supporters of civilian disarmament getting VERY froggy. I too pray for peace. Peace and justice. If we can't have both, I choose justice.

My guess. The BATFU has rumbled a threat against Mike VB. Maybe David Codrea, but most likely MVB. I've got my III badges and I'm not afraid to wear them. With people losing all their retirement savings, their houses, jobs, and now their country, the FEDS need to be careful.When you've got nothing, you've got nothing to lose.

(I took a Southern Partisan magazine to Vietnam in 1994 that explained what really happened at Waco. I lent it to my friend who had been an officer in the VNCH and who was now teaching my wife and one of her sisters English. After reading it, he stated that he had thought there was something wrong with the Communist's reporting of it, and was glad to see the truth.So Communist's interpretation = our government's interpretation. Not much more to say. BT)

Just FYI; one mans definition of single shot rifle, thanks to Carl in Chicago:

"As everyone here knows, there is widespread public confusion that has been caused by the incessant use of the terms "assault rifle" and "assault weapon" to describe semi-auto guns. The legal distinction is drawn between arms that are full auto/burst capable or not, but the pervasive use of "assault weapon" to refer to semis confuses the issue. Thus, I tend to think of and refer to any and all non-automatic firearms as single shot firearms. They are single shots because they fire a single shot per pull of the trigger. There are muzzle-loaded single shots, breech-loaded single shots, bolt/pump/lever action single shots, and self-loading single shots, etc. ... but they are all nonetheless single-shot firearms."

Wouldn't that one free Waco have been Ruby Ridge? That makes Waco the second freebie. When the next one comes it will be free, on and on, ad infinitum. I really don't like being so cynical but history gives me no choice. Until there are a sufficient number of us awake or one of us with an exceptional amount of courage, we are stuck in this cycle. I wish I had more courage. I do have a tripwire, they just haven't pushed passed my comfort zone. If I see sufficient numbers of willing people, I can change my tripwire at any moment. Maybe Eric Holder is partially correct about America being a nation of cowards.

Want more courage? Have more courage. Simple as that. Eric Holder WANTS to be right about his "Nation of Cowards". If he were right, he wouldn't even have to mention it. But jackasses have to talk themselves into what they want to do. He says shit like he does because he's a knee quaking sissy, and he wants to see what people will do when he shrieks out his threats. When the shit hits the fan, he ain't gonna be anywhere near the action. His goons will do his dirty work. He's just checking the schoolyard right now. Some of the men on the edge of it ain't foolin' though. You know, the ones with courage. The ones with enough courage to speak up in tyrannys' face.

Yes it was mailed. But if my nose for bureaucratic excrement is giving the right signals, he already has a copy on his desk. On another blog, I just posted this in response to an argument between fans and skeptics:

The letter is what it is, boys. An explication of the obvious on the occasion of the receipt of multiple threats against someone who has taken on the ATF and made their tyranny more difficult. Explaining to someone ahead of time the consequnces of their actions is not a threat. It also, you may notice, often makes the action less likely. THAT is what the letter is about. It also is an extension of something we did back in the 90s with declared militia mutual defense packs and intolerance for more government misbehavior. It is another diplomatic note in the continued cold war between liberty and tyranny in this country. Holder will understand this letter, whether you do or not.

Unfortunately, there can be little doubt that Mr. Vanderboegh has been branded a "Person Of Interest" by the collectivist/socialist Political Class.

He may well become a victim of "rendition" to an undisclosed international gulag so thatthe "customer service representatives" there who are under contract to the U.S. Political Class may render their assistance in helping him "get his mind right."

The Bill of Rights, constituting the first ten amendments to the Constitution, was demanded by the States before they would agree to ratification. The Tenth Amendment guarantees that federal government will exercise only the power expressly afforded to it by the Constitution, and that the individual States retained all other sovereign powers. The federal government has, since before the Late Unpleasantness, made a mockery of the Tenth Amendment.

The Second Amendment was not, as some speciously argue, intended to allow government-approved and sponsored militias. The States already had the power to do that. Nor was intended simply to permit Americans to hunt with firearms. It was, instead, understood to be the guarantee of last resort against unconstitutional federal action, a means for each citizen to reassert his liberty should it be stolen by a rogue government.

A man I greatly respect was a law student at Harvard in the years immediately following World War II. He told me how his distinguished professor of constitutional law closed the textbook where the post-New Deal cases began, telling the students that "constitutional law ends here." He was so right. A Supreme Court that resorts to the idiot notion of undefined and indefinable "penumbras," violating the separation-of-powers doctrine in order to usurp power from a complicit and complaisent Legislature, is simply ruling by judicial fiat. They rely on the complexity of legal procedure, on unfamiliar terms of art, and on Byzantine analysis to prevent the average person - including the average lawyer - from realizing that they are simply spouting nonsense.

The judiciary has been exercising blatently unconstitutional authority for years at the expense of state sovereignty and individual liberty. So, too, has the executive branch of government. But nothing compares to the scope and rapidity of the usurpation of power conducted by the current President and his administration. These actions are so patently illegal that the States, in reaction to these breathtaking illegalities, are one by one asserting their sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment to prevent further federal aggrandizement.

Our liberties, already severely curtained, are threatened with extinction. Our access to firearms and ammunition must not be further restricted. I hope that the current administration is not foolish enough to attempt to do so.

This has been posted on three other boards. It has recieived 100% reviews and should be posted anywhere it can be. MVB, Thankyou for an excellent, masterfull, breakdown of exactly what these criminals in DC need to understand! There is no more important reason for our Second Amendment than what has been written by you. The importance of the points brought out should also be heeded by all who wish to turn over our great nation to the globalists!

Mike McNultyProducer/Researcher/WriterWaco- The Rules of EngagementWaco- A New RevelationThe F.L.I.R. ProjectCEO COPS Productions andCitizens Organization for Public Safety - Presidentand last but not least,III

Trip to see me in the event of trouble not necessary. It will be over by the time you get there. Rather, take Bob Wright's statement to the Albuquerque FBI SAC when the SAC asked him if he would travel to another state to defend people under federal attack, a la Waco:

"Why would I want to do that? There's plenty of you federal sonsabitches around here."

What we are trying to get across to Holder is that an official murder in one place will likely be answered in all places.

If they internalize this and quit threatening people who have broken no law but have only exercised their legal right to despise the extra-legal actions of the ATF, we can all get through the next few years without incident.

The most significant fact to me is not that we are back to the 90s in the way we are dropping into cold war tactics, but that the adults in the bureaucracy are already ASKING ME for letters like this.

They are indeed worried that it is amateur hour and the babies are blundering around playing with atom bombs -- social forces which they barely know of, let alone comprehend.

I saw some video posted on YouTube that showed assault ground troops attacking the Waco Compound, shooting into an entrance way. Anyway, the video convinced me of certain things about my government I had not thought about. I think in the coming years we should not forget some of the things that happened at Waco and if ever we are able to hold someone responisible we certainly should. A big gripe of mine is how Horiutchi (sic) got off scott free for the murder of Mrs. Weaver at Ruby Ridge. I've heard he was at Waco too.

Unfortunately, unlike the first American Revolution, only about 1/3 of the population today are concerned about the ruling class. I hope we can grow that number before it's too late. Thanks for your post.

Mike is right. From up here in Kentucky, I could never get to Alabama in time to be much help. I could get to a city near here to deliver a message that certain behavior is not socially acceptable in America, at least by III%er standards. No, free Wacos, Ruby Ridges, no free gun grabs like New Orleans. That is my line in the sand, and I will not back down, or back off again.

Well said Sir. I believe the silent majority is stirring and wakening to what is happening. I believe that, along with the 'rays' of light will stop them from doing something stupid (or at least I hope so).

Old NFO Said: "Well said Sir. I believe the silent majority is stirring and wakening to what is happening. I believe that, along with the 'rays' of light will stop them from doing something stupid (or at least I hope so)." Sadly, after serving in Government for 35 years, and having audited and reviewed the actions of all levels, I have to say that the rays of light mean nothing to those in Government, elected, appointed or just serving, for they will do what they feel is needed to preserve their own status whether right or wrong. And if it be wrong, they can and will find someone to blame outside their own little spheres and quite likely that someone to shoulder the blame will be John Q. Public or obviously, you, me, and the participants of the next WACO and Ruby Ridge. For make no mistake, in their own sear ch for redemption all will be considered fair in their own tortured views. Even worse, only We the People will be to blame if we allow it to happen and go unpunished the next time.

When they do a "drug sweep" should they happen to find an "unauthorized" weapon you will be strung up or summarily shot.

You will not be a Three Percenter. You will be a member of one of those murderous Drug Gangs resisting law enforcement. Ten days later it will be announced on page 13 that no drugs were found. Or perhaps they will bring the Drugs with them and you will have a oz. of pot in your dresser drawer or a couple of grams of smack in your medicine chest. Or maybe meth precursors under your kitchen sink.

I tried to warn you about this decades ago but you weren't listening. Oh. Well.

It is both amusing and frightening to see Brown Shirtsdecrying tyranny and characterizing elected leaders as Hitlerian. I doubt that this will be published on the blog, confirming my view of the person who maintains it.

Joe and Shirley, Seeing that the original poster is NOT a Nazi and you seem to have some problem with his points of absolute truth, I suggest maybe The Daily Kos or maybe CNN is more to your liking. I'm sure that they would sooth your mind on opinions of your choir. If i am wrong that you protest the truth here, please be so kind as to explain your point. Calling those of us that believe that elected officials are the true 'Brown Shirts' names won;t get you very far here. We know trolls when we see them, as well as plants from the Statists and Marxists when we see them postin such a manner!

A bit late to the party on this one but after a conversation with a good friend last night about policy and procedure if there's every the late night knock on the door, or flash bang through the window for that matter. The consensus is that America would no longer be worth living in if the 2nd amendment was undone somehow.

"Progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress."

I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air – that progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress, and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave. -- H.L. Mencken

On the efficacy of passive resistance in the face of the collectivist beast. . .

Had the Japanese got as far as India, Gandhi's theories of "passive resistance" would have floated down the Ganges River with his bayoneted, beheaded carcass. -- Mike Vanderboegh.

In the future . . .

When the histories are written, “National Rifle Association” will be cross-referenced with “Judenrat.” -- Mike Vanderboegh to Sebastian at "Snowflakes in Hell"

"Smash the bloody mirror."

If you find yourself through the looking glass, where the verities of the world you knew and loved no longer apply, there is only one thing to do. Knock the Red Queen on her ass, turn around, and smash the bloody mirror. -- Mike Vanderboegh

From Kurt Hoffman over at Armed and Safe.

"I believe that being despised by the despicable is as good as being admired by the admirable."

From long experience myself, I can only say, "You betcha."

"Only cowards dare cringe."

The fears of man are many. He fears the shadow of death and the closed doors of the future. He is afraid for his friends and for his sons and of the specter of tomorrow. All his life's journey he walks in the lonely corridors of his controlled fears, if he is a man. For only fools will strut, and only cowards dare cringe. -- James Warner Bellah, "Spanish Man's Grave" in Reveille, Curtis Publishing, 1947.

"We fight an enemy that never sleeps."

"As our enemies work bit by bit to deconstruct, we must work bit by bit to REconstruct. Be mindful where we should be. Set goals. We fight an enemy that never sleeps. We must learn to sleep less." -- Mike H. at What McAuliffe Said

"The Fate of Unborn Millions. . ."

"The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their Houses, and Farms, are to be pillaged and destroyed, and they consigned to a State of Wretchedness from which no human efforts will probably deliver them. The fate of unborn Millions will now depend, under God, on the Courage and Conduct of this army-Our cruel and unrelenting Enemy leaves us no choice but a brave resistance, or the most abject submission; that is all we can expect-We have therefore to resolve to conquer or die." -- George Washington to his troops before the Battle of Long Island.

"We will not go gently . . ."

This is no small thing, to restore a republic after it has fallen into corruption. I have studied history for years and I cannot recall it ever happening. It may be that our task is impossible. Yet, if we do not try then how will we know it can't be done? And if we do not try, it most certainly won't be done. The Founders' Republic, and the larger war for western civilization, will be lost.

But I tell you this: We will not go gently into that bloody collectivist good night. Indeed, we will make with our defiance such a sound as ALL history from that day forward will be forced to note, even if they despise us in the writing of it.

And when we are gone, the scattered, free survivors hiding in the ruins of our once-great republic will sing of our deeds in forbidden songs, tending the flickering flame of individual liberty until it bursts forth again, as it must, generations later. We will live forever, like the Spartans at Thermopylae, in sacred memory.

-- Mike Vanderboegh, The Lessons of Mumbai:Death Cults, the "Socialism of Imbeciles" and Refusing to Submit, 1 December 2008

"A common language of resistance . . ."

"Colonial rebellions throughout the modern world have been acts of shared political imagination. Unless unhappy people develop the capacity to trust other unhappy people, protest remains a local affair easily silenced by traditional authority. Usually, however, a moment arrives when large numbers of men and women realize for the first time that they enjoy the support of strangers, ordinary people much like themselves who happen to live in distant places and whom under normal circumstances they would never meet. It is an intoxicating discovery. A common language of resistance suddenly opens to those who are most vulnerable to painful retribution the possibility of creating a new community. As the conviction of solidarity grows, parochial issues and aspirations merge imperceptibly with a compelling national agenda which only a short time before may have been the dream of only a few. For many Americans colonists this moment occurred late in the spring of 1774." -- T.H. Breen, The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence, Oxford University Press, 2004, p.1.